>> Hunter Hoover: Whoever sat down and produced whatever sound was produced to warrant the name Thunderbox, um, they deserve to name it Thunderbox. Welcome back to Privy Potty Friends. This is a podcast about toilets recorded from a toilet. I'm Hunter, um, and I've had a lot of weird stories on, around and. And having to do with
toilets. So that's why I'm here. And I'm told that, you know, bathrooms and things around bathrooms and having to do with bathrooms are not the most tasteful or the most important or the most maybe serious thing. Um, but I would like to challenge each and every one of us as we dive into super, super serious stuff this week. Um, to really take it seriously. Uh, I want to apologize first, uh, at the top here. The podcast is coming out a little bit late this week. Um,
still figuring all this stuff out. Uh, but here we are, episode three. Um, and we're going to talk about why we call the bathroom, or whatever word you use for the bathroom. We're going to talk a little bit about why you use that word. Um, was I was talking to a co worker the other day, and I use the word potty because we have small children living in our home, and so potty is what it is. Um, and our son is potty train, which is super duper great. Uh, it's a blessing in my
life. Uh, but when I used the word potty, he made a joke of, like, how old are you? Are you seriously using the word potty in front of me right now as a grown adult human being? Um, and so in this episode, after I argued with him a little bit about, hey, it's fine, I'm okay to use the word potty to talk about, um, the place where I do my bathrooming. Uh, at which point he said, well, you just use the word bathroom, so maybe you're wrong. And then I just disengage from that.
But in this episode, uh, we're going to talk about what we call the places that we go to do our business, and we're going to look specifically at why maybe certain people latch on to certain terms. Um, and then we're going to speak a little bit, ah, about the name of this podcast and why it is called Privy. Um, it only took us three episodes to address why the name of the podcast is the name of the podcast. So I'm pretty sure that's good podcasting. Um, basics. I don't know.
Here we go. Uh, so what do we call these things? So when I was growing up, I always called the place where I Did my business, the bathroom. And, uh, this has to be because often our first, at least mine, um, my first introduction to, to the whole toileting space. And the toileting experience includes a room that has a bath in it. And so it's this idea that like, a bathroom is any room that has,
wait for it, a, ah, bath in it. And so, like, as I'm sitting in my, my home bathroom right now, I can turn and there is a bath and it has plenty of children's toys and it is marked up by children's bath crayons. Uh, but there is a bath in this room, hence the term bathroom. But I remember very, very, very clearly calling every bathroom whether or not it had a bath. Bathroom. I, growing up, I never had a specific term to describe the place that I did bathrooming that did not have a bath.
And one day I'm sure we're going to talk about baths on this, uh, podcast. But that is not today. Um, and so I reserve my opinion. Um, but the bathroom was in history. So in history, the bathroom was formally not a place where you use the toilet. Um, but it was specifically the room in a house
where you took a bath. And so in the 20th century, it began to shift away specifically from m, this room where you went to bathe and hopefully clean yourself to a room where you used the toilet in a more refined
and polite way. And I stress that refined and polite way because it was like in the 20th century, especially probably the early 20th century, bathroom probably would have been used to distinguish between, like, going indoors where the elements don't have to interact with the zone, uh, and possibly having to go out of doors. Um, and so for me, like, the gauge is, do I have to put my shoes on to go to
the bathroom? And so if you answer that question, yes, and you live in the early 20th century, you are probably not using a bathroom. You are using something else. And we'll get there. Um, in fact, it seems that a lot of the names that we use have been adapted from a previous word that was similar to fit a more refined time. Uh, so while most of the terms and where they could come from could be episodes in themselves, and who
knows, they may be, um, there's plenty of these terms. I'm going to read a big list of them here in a second, but we're going to talk specifically about the term privy and how we got word privy. But, uh, over the years, some of the names that people have used to describe their bathroom or well, it's not bathroom because that's A name for it. A. A word that people have used to describe the space in which they go pee or poop. Include the chamber. A chamber pot.
Real quick. That's not a place, just so you know. That is a small pot. And they would do their business, and then some other poor individual had to take that pot. Hopefully not sloshing it. God forbid. I don't know if you've ever carried, like, a big, big, big, like, um, container of soup or stew, and you get the momentum inside the pot, and it kind of sloshes, and it gets a little, like, splashback on your shirt or something.
Except for now, inside the pot, it is not stew or soup, but it might be stew's soup, if you know what I'm saying. Um, potty represent, uh, the little house. I like that idea, especially with all the tiny house people running around. That makes me smile, um, that I live in a tiny house. And then I can just kind of chuckle to myself, because a little house used to be, uh, another word for where you pooped. The outhouse. We know what that is. We get that. The head. Nope, skipping that. Um, the cz
John, The John, the Jake. Poor John and Jake. They. They're named for places you go to. The bathroom. Uh, the water closet, the earth closet. Those are different. And I. I think I know how, but, um, I'm pretty sure the difference on that is, like, the earth closet, they buried the poop where the water closet was like something where they, much like the chamber pot, maybe emptied it. I'll have to look that up. And that might end up being its own separate episode for another day. Um, the dunny.
I like the dunny. That one's actually pretty good, I think. I mean, we're gonna try to bring back privy, but, uh, the duny is a good second, in my opinion. The lavatory also. There's gonna be lots of side notes, but whenever I see the word lavatory, I think of Dexter's Laboratory. And when I found out that lavatory was a word for a bathroom, I thought that that show was named
after Dexter's bathroom. But then I found out that it's actually laboratory and not lavatory, and then that's the end of that story. Um, the bathroom. Yep, the restroom. Uh, the women's. The men's. I think those correspond, possibly in a certain time. The loo. I like that one. The throne. The iron throne. Uh, the powder room. The honey pot. Oh, my goodness gracious. The honey pot brings back specific memories of a story that happened in college that is not Pertinent to bathroomoming, but, um,
man good. O Honeypot. The Biffy. Biffy's good. The Nettie. The Thunderbox. Now, you know, whoever sat down and produced whatever sound was produced to warrant the name Thunderbox, um, they deserve to name it Thunderbox the Crapper. And that one, to my understanding, is named after a man name Crapper. And not for the act of crapping, but that's beside the point. Uh, and the one we are going to be discussing today is the privy. And that's what this show lends this name to, is privy.
And privy is one of the older words that we have for a bathroom, because the earliest citation of the word privy being used is in 1225. Um, it comes from the French word, uh, which is Old French for an intimate, friendly, private place. Uh, so it's a spot. And keep in mind, like, they probably lived in a culture where your private space and like, your personal bubble was
less existent. Who knows? Um, I remember reading this thing about how like, the invention of TV took people off their front porches and they stopped interacting with their neighbors. Uh, and so I imagine, like, that way, way removed Back to like 1200s France, where, you know, they, they're going to be closer and they're going to be interacting with each other. And so this idea of a privy is your spot.
And so, you know, there's groups of people who, like, when they go to the bathroom, that is them time that they don't have to deal with the world outside the bathroom. And we've talked before about, you know, the phone comes out and that's wild to me. I guess I'm guilty of it. But the phone comes out and then you've got the bacteria nightmare. Um, but that spirit of what a bathroom is, is a place where you get to be alone is what is behind the word privy. That is what
is behind it. Um, and one of the reasons, the first description of the room for business, uh, at the time of its usage, uh, most people went into a chamber pot. So they would have. This is what I'm saying is like, they didn't have as much of like, personal space to go to the bathroom, but you would have this pot that you would have inside your like, chamber room, which I think is like a bedroom. But I'm not, I'm not a historian. I just enjoy toilets.
But you had this pot that was inside the chamber room and you would do brown into the pot. And then, like I said, there was like a friend, or probably not a friend, probably a less thing Than that, unfortunately, would take this pot of brown and take it out and dump it. And so the privy is this idea of, um, something that is separate than
that. And the chamber pot, I mean it was a lot more convenient to just, I think of like the people who have like rigged up the um, porta potty things underneath, like camping chairs so they don't have to move from what they're doing and they can just go to the zone that's kind of like the chamber pot'second cousin maybe once or twice removed. Um, but the privy was probably, um, separate from even the entire building
of the house. And so while the chamber pot was probably a lot more popular with the people living inside the home, I imagined the maids, um, and the piss boys, which is. That is the term for them. Uh, that is what they were called. But the people who were emptying the pots, I have to imagine that they smiled more favorably on this idea of a privy, of this like separate building where, hey, you know what? How about you hike up, you go out and you don't leave brown in the pot for me to deal
with. Debah does not need to be dealing with other people's brown. And so the privy was probably the best option for Debah in 1225 France. They're probably a, uh, Privy is probably more like what we think of as an outhouse today. And I know that sounds like less, um. What's the right word that sounds less refined. But keep in mind the other option is blasting booty into the chamber pot
and handing it to Debra. And you have to look Debra in the eye and say, hey, I know you did this for me one to two days ago and I'm sure you're goingna do it again for me one to do days from now. But'here's uh, this gift. It's not great. And so in my opinion, in the time frame, in the time period of 1225 was the first mentioned. So let's say after 1200s, in that timef frame, the privy is the
better option. And I would argue it is the more loving option because you know, Deborah is just hoping, uh, oh, please, please let this person use the privy outside and not the chamber pot six feet from perhaps where they conduct business or sleep. It's. It's another world. Um, so privies also, this is the other interesting thing. So there's like websites that are like, hey, privies are like the first outdoor restroom. And that's absolute bupkiss foolishness because the outdoors is the
first outdoor restroom. Lest we Forget that when snuff comes to worse that you can go to the bathroom in the woods outside without a, uh, furniture device to go into. And aonnd the woods is nature's bathroom. We. So the privy is maybe the better way, um, to say it is that the privy is the first bathroom that is detached from the house proper. It's more, it's more of an outdoor shack, but it's a legacy. It's a legacy of saying I want my space. I do not want people around when, um, I'm
dropping charges. I don't want people to know what I did in the chamber pot. And so, and I don't want debah to have to deal with the chamber pot. And so it's this two part uh, of a private space, but it's also a, uh, community thing where I just know that I am going to be more likely to be able to look my chamber pot empty person in the face if I don't use the chamber pot. If I go outside away from the chamber pot, say, Deborah,
you've got the afternoon off. I'm, uh, going to go use the outdoor one. Um, it's just to me a more caring act than filling a brass pot and handed it off to your friend. That said privies did not have plumbing. It was, it was a hole in the ground. They dug a hole in the ground and they, they pooped in the hole and they peed in the hole. Actually, I don't even know if they'd pee in the hole. They probably would pee somewhere else. That way like the hole doesn't get all stirred up and weird
and more wet. Um, when indoor plumbing was invented and introduced into most homes, the name privy fell by the wayside and it was replaced by the term little houses or outhouses. And we still have those terms today. Uh, and if you've never had the astute pleasure of using a true outhouse, and I'm not talking like one of the little blue pop up portable things that the state fair drags out and it gets filled with fried dookie mess and it
stinks. I'm talking like a true wooden outhouse that is emptied into a hole in the ground. Um, I would argue that you maybe have yet to fully experience everything that bathroomoming has for you. Uh, I remember we would go camping in the woods in Montana. And I don't know why I remember this, but my uncle had this like, campsite that he kind of built his own
little cabin. Uh, well, was a big cabin, but he had, I don't Know why I remember this like a frame outhouse for some reason on his property and hardly anybody used it like it was the thing that you used when the other bathrooms were full. But whenever I picture an old fashioned outhouse, that's what I imagine.
Um, for office fans out there, it's like when the Jim and Pam go and stay at Dwight's for their overnight bed and breakfast stay and they hear the clacking in the night and they wake up and Mose is just posted up in the outhouse. That that would have been what a privy would have been like. And so I um, I think that that is wrong. The word outhouse to me sounds so archaic that we, we need to bring back the word privy.
And I would argue that we need to not just bring back privy for a stand in for what outhouses and little houses and maybe porta Potties are. But I think we need to bring back the word privy as an all encompassing term for the place that you go to use the privy. Uh, and so it's just a general term for restroom. We bring it back, bring back privy 2020. So we're going to um, from here we're going to explore in the future other names for privies.
Uh, but for today I hope we've, for today I hope we have gained better uh, appreciation for the underdog that is privy. Let's Bring it back'it's the spirit of taking privacy and having your fellow man or woman in mind, putting their needs above yours, but also making sure that you can um, do business in your own privacy. As always, I'SUPER uh, duper excited to be continuing to make and put this podcast out. Um, please if you have not yet leave us a uh, review or rating. Um, especially like on
itunes. And, and the reason that is is it just makes it easier for other people to find the podcast. And I don't really know how a person would stumble across this. I guess maybe if they typed in toilets or bathrooms or something into the itunes search bar, maybe they'd find it. But um, leaving a rating in a review helps more people find the podcast and it helps more people get in on this very important information about toilets. This is the information that we need.
Um, and so like I said, rate and review. Uh, if you are able to follow on uh, Instagram and Twitter Privycast, uh, and send us an email@ah, privycastmail.com do uh, real quick, super exciting. I did get an email uh, to privycast is really exciting listener email. Uh, and this one is actually pretty um, it's gonna sound weird, but it's moderately special to me. Um, so this, this email comes from Dr. Greg Troll. Uh, so Dr. Troll was my homaletics and preaching, um, teacher
when I was in college. Uh, and's he's a great guy. Uh, shout out to he and his son, um, and their family. I hope they're doing great. Just a quick story. Um, M. Dr. Troll. One of my favorite memories and something I still have. The picture on my phone is a picture of he and my advisor, uh, in Israel and them riding a camel and just having the greatest time of their lives.
Um, so Dr. Troll wrote in, when I taught you in homiletics, I had no idea that you would so creatively adapt your training to produce a podcast on toilets. I've confidence that this will rise to at least number two. Nice. The nice was my part, maybe even number one in this category. See, this man gets how important potty humor is. He understands it. I look forward to seeing how, uh, you will digest the considerable research on water closets. Good name. Um, I don't think I actually
had that one in there earlier. So you see, we're going to do learning together, um, and pass on nuggets. Pass on nuggets of knowledge to us all. I hope you can squeeze in the time for this extra work. I think he's being genuine and like, I know Dr. Troll, he is being. Genuinely says that, but I like the word squeeze there. In a podcast about toilets. I think that was intended to be funny. Uh, it can be tough to be creative in a pinch. Suggestions? Oh, this is great. Um,
suggestions for future broadcasts. Courtesy flushes. Nice under the divider. Paper sharing and appropriate bathroom conversations. Oh, yeah, these will for sure make, um, a debut in the future. Uh, he says. Keep dropping the wisdom, greg. Thank you, Dr. Troll. Um, if you have a, uh, comment or a suggestion, please feel free to email us again. That's privycastmail.com uh, and with that said, there's nothing else to do. But don't forget to flush.